Trainer Shane Baertschiger called Lincoln Road’s return to winning ways on Monday as his “best win” by far.
After a flying start to his Kranji career with five wins on the trot, the Polytrack specialist kept finding one or two better. Other than one unplaced run which came in the Group 2 Merlion Trophy (1200m) in March, Lincoln Road seldom let his connections down.
The winless run was starting to stretch towards one year (last of the quintet of wins was recorded on June 5, 2016), but Baertschiger has successfully fixed the niggles that have been besetting the Lincoln Farms Stable banner, and Monday’s resounding win in the$125,000 Kranji Stakes A race over 1100m certainly came as a nice reward for his patience.
Sebas (Manoel Nunes) led as expected, with Lincoln Road, who was backed down to $17 favouritism, next in the running line while second fancy Super Winner (Zawari Razali) had dropped to last.
The order did not change much until the small seven-horse field (after the withdrawal of The General) swung for home.
Sebas offered barely any resistance as Lincoln Road swiftly sprinted by with Sun Pioneer (Wong Chin Chuen) and Good News (Benny Woodworth) in hot pursuit. Super Winner was too far back to play any part in the concluding stages but Olympic Anthem (Michael Rodd) was making rapid ground on the outside.
But the soft mid-race sectionals would always prove a tall order for the swoopers. Lincoln Road was in the best spot and when he struck the lead, he just kept working to the line virtually unopposed to land the prize.
Best of the rest two and three-quarter lengths away was Olympic Anthem who nudged Sebas out of second place by a short head. The winning time was 1min 4.65secs for the 1100m on Polytrack.
“This is his best win to-date,” said Baertschiger.
“Vlad Duric rode him las time and said he should have won. The General got him to go early.
“He had joint problems, which explained why he went through a bit of a slump in form, but he’s bounced back now.
“He has only a short sharp sprint and the race was run to suit him. I just told Matty not to chase Sebas he will come back to us, and it’s all worked out well.
“Unfortunately for Vlad, he fell yesterday and hurt himself, but it’s good for Matty as he does all the work on him and he deserves to get a win on him.
“I don’t have any big plans for Lincoln Road, just potter around with him in similar races.”
The Baertschiger yard kept up their solid form when they picked up a second win with another favourite Montaigne ($13) in the next race, the $38,000 Kranji Stakes D Division 2 race over 1200m.
Taking up the running from the word go, the Road To Rock four-year-old made all for John Powell, and though he was on his knees in the concluding stages, he held on to score by a short head from Phidias (Woodworth) with Amazon Gold (Nunes) third another length away.
The winning time was 1min 11.93secs for the 1200m on Polytrack.
“It’s been a good weekend. We had no runners yesterday, and we went home with two winners today,” said Baertschiger.
The training double enables the Australian handler to consolidate his fourth place on the Singapore trainer’s premiership on 22 winners, nine behind joint leaders Alwin Tan and Mark Walker on 31 winners.
